Oh Heartless Man
by MurmursInTheSea
Summary: Young Dr Watson is under a terrible curse, and there is nowhere he can go but the Waste, where he meets the infamous wizard Howl and his dump of a moving castle. (Howl's Moving Castle AU. I have to apologise to Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki for turning his beautiful story into something dark and twisty)
1. 1: The Wizard and the Witch

John lived alone.  
Of course he lived alone. His sister spent each night drifting from pub to pub, waking up each morning with another lover with their arms wrapped around each other. Pretending to be something she wasn't, so that she would be safe. Neither of them said anything about it, the way they never talked about the responsibility of running their father's clinic falling heavily onto John's shoulders, despite being the younger of them both. They never talked about the way John paid his staff more than he kept for himself, or the way that he worked himself to the bone. In fact, they never talked much at all.  
John liked to keep to himself. He would offer his patients few words - although he would always have the same half-smile playing on his lips, and a warm glow in his eyes - and carry out his diagnosis in the most efficient manner. Everyone knew he was the best doctor in their little town, whether or not he was merely trained by his father. Everyone also knew that John was not going to get married to anyone soon, or even later, or maybe even ever.  
He was a quiet young man, that John.  
But no one knew about the dreams. John would dream, yes, about a soft, rumbling voice in his ear, of the smell of flowers dancing in the wind, of the sound of running water, and the feel of a calloused palm in his. Not calloused as a farmer's would be, but as a musician's, or a writer's. No one knew that when John woke, after these dreams had played out, he would find tears in his eyes and a terrible ache in his chest, feeling as though he had lost something which was never his. These days, he would be distracted, sitting for hours on end in his private office, eyes trained on the vast Waste beyond the rolling hills, where the fog pulled its lazy way across the green. He would feel, somewhere beneath the left side of his ribcage, a trembling urge to run into the Waste and never come back. He would feel so much, he dared to imagine that perhaps it was love, but for the absence of a recipient of his affections.  
The night before he had dreamed again, and he sat at his desk, the door slightly ajar, eyes focused on the distant horizon. He ran his hand absently over his books. He leaned forwards to open the window and let the fading summer drift in on the wind. He closed his eyes and let himself imagine - if only for a brief moment - that he was there, amongst those beautiful hills and in those valleys, and that he was free.  
He was disturbed from his reverie when his assistants began to jabber excitedly. He rose from his seat, peering through the doorway. Sarah had her face all but pressed against the glass, eyes wide.  
'That's him!' Molly exclaimed, pointing out towards the hill. John automatically glanced out his window. 'That's him, isn't it? Sherlock!'  
John squinted, but saw nothing but a vague, giant shape lumbering in the fog.  
'Oh, I hear he eats people's hearts,' Sarah grinned devilishly. 'But don't worry, he only picks the pretty girls.'  
John sighed just as Molly gasped in outrage. The girls were close enough to be sisters, but then John and his sister were never close. Maybe it was time he visited her again.  
'Molly! Sarah!' he called, putting on his coat and hat, 'I'm going to visit Harriet. Don't burn the place to the ground, please.' He made sure to give them both a stern glare as he passed them on his way to the door.  
Sarah waved happily whilst Molly gave him a look of mild concern. She was the more observant of the two - and possibly the more intelligent - and always knew how John felt about his sister.  
But these were things that they didn't talk about.

Half of the city was blocked completely off as soldiers marched along, confetti and flowers raining down on them as the band played a cheery tune. John found himself having to take the long route to Harriet, winding through back alleys to avoid the chaos. John glanced at their blue coats and their gleaming buttons with a sharp burst of envy. He almost enlisted, when he was younger, but his father had grabbed him by the collar and dragged him all the way back through town. 'You're a doctor, John, not a soldier,' his father snapped. 'You do not take lives, you save lives.'  
John believed that there was a part of him that wanted to take lives. For a just cause, he was certain he would.  
Perhaps there was something wrong with him after all, just as there was something wrong with his mother, who drank a bottle of cyanide when John was a baby. Just as there was something wrong with Harriet, with her addiction to the night and the sting of liquor.  
Lost in thought, John almost walked straight into a soldier. He ground to a halt. 'Sorry,' he said quickly. He cursed his unfortunate height and the implication it had of him being meek and submissive. John was anything but meek. However, he was polite, and for that he would try to avoid trouble.  
The soldier grinned widely. 'Why, if it isn't a sweet little mouse?' he announced mockingly, looming over. 'What are you doing, little mouse? Too scared of the war to join?' He stepped closer - too close for comfort - and his grin widened. 'Or maybe you're not a man at all, little mouse.'  
John was suddenly aware of a prickling on his back. He glanced behind him to find another soldier looming above him. 'Please,' he said softly, 'my sister will be waiting for me.' He was no helpless mouse, despite what these two seemed to think, however he had no hope of overpowering two men twice his size. He took in the rifles leaning against the wall, and the small knife tucked into the first soldier's belt. John himself was unarmed. It was his policy, since his father's death and the promise he whispered in the old man's last minutes.  
_I will not take lives. I save lives._  
The first soldier laughed in a belly-heaving, good-natured way. John knew there was nothing good-natured about the soldier's intentions. This was a dark alleyway, and no one would hear him scream over the noise of the parade. John began searching his doctor's mind for the weakest parts of the human body, aligning them with the crude self-defense he had scraped off his uncles when joining the army had still been a faint possibility. Just enough to stun them, and to run. Just that. Somewhere with a lot of people. Or to Harriet's shop, if he ran fast enough.  
The second soldier's hand settled on the wall above John's soldier. It was getting difficult to breathe. 'You're scaring him,' the second soldier scolded playfully. 'Look, the poor thing's trembling. You're flirting all wrong!'  
John clenched his fist.  
And then it happened.  
'There you are,' called a deep voice. Heels clicked against the cobbled street. The soldier standing behind John was pushed unceremoniously aside, drawing an indignant cry from the offended. An arm draped itself gently over the doctor's shoulder. 'I've been looking everywhere for you.'  
John opened his mouth to protest, but then he caught sight of his saviour's face and all the air left his lungs. It was well known that Harriet was the prettiest thing in town, and John had grown quite usedto the fact. Now, however, he realised that his concept of beauty was entirely misconstrued. The man standing beside him was breathtakingly beautiful. _Devastatingly._ He had a head of golden locks, pale, flawless skin, and sharp, angular cheekbones that made him seem otherworldly.  
As for his eyes, John was suddenly reminded of the first time he saw snow.  
The first soldier, of course, was not quite as impressed. 'As the King's men, we have the right to do whatever we please,' he reminded the stranger haughtily. This was true. If a soldier wished to bed your wife, sister, or daughter, he could, and the marriage would remain intact. If a soldier wished to take your food, he could. But no one talked about this. No one protested. If they did, they would face the wrath of the King's soldiers, or worse, the King's wizards.  
The stranger smiled, but there was no pleasantry in it. 'I'm sure you believe you do,' he retorted smoothly. 'It's a shame you were just leaving.' And then he raised his hand, and like a conductor waving his baton, flicked his wrist slightly.  
The soldiers backs straightened, heels clicking together in uncanny unison. There was a sudden flash of fear in the first soldier's eye, but a sordid acceptance in the second, as though he was about to face something he had many times before. Another flick of the stranger's wrist, and the soldiers marched stiffly off, marionettes at a puppet-master's mercy.  
John's gut twisted. If there was ever a moment he was stuck between a rock and hard place, now was one. Saved from the King's soldier only to be at the mercy of a wizard.  
The tall wizard's eyes traveled quickly over John's face. 'Your emotions are far too easy to read,' he noted, his smile softening into something almost humorous. 'Don't worry. I have no intention of hurting you.' He extended his elbow, which John took automatically despite the fact that a) men did not do such things, b) no one was going to hear him scream anyways, and c) wizards were not to be trusted, ever.  
John said nothing, allowing himself to be pulled onward.  
'Your sister prefers you to stay away,' the wizard noted, 'and you don't like seeing her much either, and yet here you are, choosing a rather risky path to visit her. Whatever sentiment caused you to engage in such foolishness?'  
John breathed in sharply. These were facts of life, true, but they were hidden to all but those closest to the siblings. Could the wizard read minds as well? 'That's none of your business,' John said sharply. He bit his lip, instantly regretting his words.  
But the wizard just chuckled - a deep, velvety sound - and patted John's knuckles. 'Or perhaps it's your desire for danger,' he continued nonchalantly, as though he was discussing the weather. 'You play meek and quiet, when you are a far better fighter than those two idiots. I think you could probably take me on, if you really set your mind to it.' He dropped his gaze to John, flashing a bright grin. 'You're wasted as a doctor.'  
John decided he'd had enough of this. 'Are you reading my mind?' he demanded icily, all pretense of civility dropped. If he was going to die, well, then he might as well not die a spineless rat.  
The wizard's grin broadened, his eyes lighting up with pleasure. 'Of course not,' he replied. 'I'm merely deducing, which any buffoon could do if they were able to use their observational skills. You mentioned to the soldiers that you had a sister. You have no reason to lie, you're an honest man. The only reason you would be walking through these alleys is if you were trying to reach the other side of the city, making it the most efficient route considering that the roads are blocked by the parade. There is black ink on your shirt sleeve, purchased from a private store catering only to clinics. Dark smudges under the eye but no indication of fatigue, signs of a taxing profession, therefore, doctor. Only doctor in this town, I'd wager, and quite good too, considering the size and agility of your hands. But those scars on your knuckles are clear marks of a fighting man. Someone taught you, but you never joined the King's army due to your duties as a doctor.' The wizard stopped his roaring river of deductions to smile at John. 'Well?'  
The doctor swallowed, blinked once, and said, 'Amazing.' He laughed weakly, shaking his head. He wasn't even going to pretend he was upset anymore. He was far too impressed for that. This strange wizard had taken normal steps - logical thought processes - instead of relying on his magic to deduce John's life. 'That was... amazing.'  
For a brief moment, the wizard looked stunned. Then, his lips twisted with a smile. 'That's not what most people say,' he revealed.  
John grinned, tension slipping from his body. He was about to ask what most people said to this strange wizard when said wizard glanced behind them, mischief creeping into his smile.  
'I'm afraid we're being followed,' the stranger said calmly. 'How inconvenient.' He adjusted John's grip on his arm, securing it in the crook of his elbow.  
John looked over his shoulder. A long, dark shadow danced off the walls of the alleyway, shivering and rippling, forming claws and teeth and hollow eyes. John had seen this sort of magic before, when he was no more than a boy, watching a hungry wizard trap a beggar. His heart beat a terrified patter in his throat. Wizards were not men. Ordinary, under-sized doctors barely trained in hand-to-hand combat did not kill wizards. Wizards kill wizards.  
John's current wizard escort brushed his fingertips against the doctor's wrist. 'Elevated pulse,' he noted. 'Ah, no need to be alarmed, doctor.' He looked up at the brilliant crack of sky above them, grinning in a way that made John worry. 'I'll get us out of here. Hold tight!'  
Which, of course, is when the bloody blonde-headed wizard shot up out of the hallway and into the sky. With John hanging on for dear life, screaming his head off.

'You can open your eyes now,' laughed the wizard.  
John obeyed, albeit hesitantly, to find to his absolute horror that they were suspended - no, _strolling_ - through the air, hundreds of feet above the city square. Women in their best dresses and soldiers whirled about to a cheery melody. Inappropriately cheery, considering John was about to fall to his death. And all he wanted was to see his sister.  
The wizard tapped the doctor's knuckles twice. 'Come now, don't disappoint me,' he teased. 'Stretch your legs out.'  
Disappoint him? Really? When did John ever disappoint anyone? He was a doctor, chained to a clinic he never really wanted to work in, all for the sake of making his father proud. John set his jaw, glared at the wizard, and defiantly started marching. If he was going to take part in this idiocy, he would do it his way.  
He expected to be teased, as he had been throughout the entire ordeal, but instead there was a strangely sober silence. 'You're a natural,' he whispered, sounding almost surprised.  
For a moment, John thought he smelt flowers on the wind.  
But then he was being lowered down onto the balcony of Harriet's bakery, and the wizard's fingertips were quickly sliding out of his grasp. 'I am most certain we will meet again, doctor,' the wizard smiled, waving his hand with the most elegant of motions. And with that, he dropped out of the air.  
John felt the hollow part of his gut - the part that had grown in him as a child and expanded until it almost swallowed his timid heart - dropped into his feet. He ran to the edge of the balcony, expecting to see a mangled body on the cobbled street below.  
Nothing, nothing but whirling dancers and laughing women, and the cheery sound of the marching band.

Harriet found him, of course, standing in a daze on the balcony, rubbing the palm of his hand absently. She threw her arms around him. There was a hint of brandy on her breath, under the sweet scent of her perfume. 'Oh, John, you silly thing!' she exclaimed, shaking her head. 'Someone told me you floated onto the balcony with a wizard. A _wizard,_ John!' She squeezed so tightly that John feared she had cut off all circulation in his upper arms. 'What on Earth were you thinking? You know what the King's wizards are like, especially to... to doctors.'  
John winced. The notion that wizards were angry at doctors was a superstitious one at most. Science and magic could certainly coexist. They simply obeyed different laws.  
Harriet shuddered with horror, widening her pretty blue eyes at the thought. When they were little, people often assumed that John was brown-eyed, and Harriet like their mother, simply because hers was a brilliant, obvious shade. No one looked at dull little John long enough to notice that his eyes were the darkest shade of the deepest sea, and they held secrets that had seeped through his mother's womb into his blood, lingering in every fibre of his being.  
'What if he was Sherlock?' Harriet sighed. 'What if he wanted to eat your heart?'  
John's gaze drifted out over the balcony and into the sky, remembering the feeling of callouses against his hand. He thought of the dream that he never spoke of, and the voice that haunted his nights.  
Fanciful thoughts did not belong in a doctor's head. He clenched his fist and lifted his chin so that he looked his sister directly in the eye. 'Sherlock only eats the heart of pretty girls,' he stated blandly. Pretty girl he was most certainly not. 'Besides, it was better to be a temporary wizard's escort than to be raped by the King's soldiers.'  
Harriet's eyes flew wide open and she covered her mouth. '_John!'_she exclaimed, horrified. 'How could you say such horrible things? You _must_be careful. You know I worry about you.' This last part was true, at least.  
She knew the actions of delicacy well, but they both knew that it was all an act, just the way John pretended to be plain and safe, and Harriet pretended to be beautiful. Maybe they both had wizard blood in their veins after all. Why else would they be so twisted and perverse?

As always, Harriet attempted to convince John to leave the clinic behind and live his dreams.  
John bit his tongue. He had many answers, but he didn't want to fight with his sister this time. If he wanted to be honest, however, he would have told her to seek her own dreams. He would have told her to stop hiding the way her eyes dragged towards the homely baker's daughter, to love whoever she wanted to love, to take what she needed, to stop drowning herself in drink. John knew that no amount of liquor would drown a heart's pain.  
But he nodded silently and let his sister kiss his cheek. He memorised the soft scent of her perfume. She complained about his stubble and he complained about her lipstick stain on his cheek. He looked back three times as he walked away, and each time, Harriet waved excitedly, standing on the tips of her dainty toes.  
Whatever else she was, John knew his sister had a good heart. Sometimes, it was barely enough, but perhaps he would try harder.

It was dark by the time he got home. His feet hurt from walking, ensuring that he took the route by the canal, avoiding all the taverns where the soldiers would have gotten piss-drunk by now. Whatever trouble he got into that afternoon, it was likely to have trebled at the setting of the sun. John could not afford any of that. He had a reputation to uphold after all. A duty.  
He made his way to the front desk of the clinic and flopped - boneless - into Molly's chair. It smelt faintly of embalming fluid. A small smile curved his lips upwards. So Molly had been at the cadavers again. It was unheard of for a woman to be a doctor. There were a good measure of female sorcerers, and many of them had treated the King's soldiers for maladies no ordinary physician would be able to cure. But they were another race. Superior. Dangerous. _Wild._  
John's attention snapped into focus as the door to the clinic swung open. He stood quickly, reverting to his medical training. Only the worst cases came in after twilight. When he was a boy, he remembered the smell of blood and urine, and the stench of ripped flesh. He remembered the dark curses, and the way that knuckles could grow white when fingers were digging deep into the soft wood of his father's table. He remembered the stench of vomit, and the moans.  
There was no blood this time. A small-boned man stood in the doorway, dressed from head to toe in black, but for the splash of red at his throat in the form of a knotted silk scarf. His dark hair was fashionably arranged, almost in the manner that gentlemen did in Kingsbury, but then no gentlemen ever came here. This man was anything but a city gentleman. He _smelt _like danger. Danger, and magic.  
John's heart should have been pounding. He should have been frozen with fear. But the doctor was calm, if not overly tired and a little fed up of the ridiculous events that had followed him all day. This was his private time. Alone time, time to forget about pretending, time to return to his haunting dream and the angrybdesire to be more than a creature chained to a huse full of dead memories and immortal obligations. Witches and wizards could _piss off._  
'I don't know why you keep this place running so close to the Waste,' the gentleman sneered, flashing unnervingly white teeth. 'Tacky beyond imagination, this medicine thing.'  
John frowned. 'Excuse me?'  
The gentleman's smile widened into a predatory sneer. John was suddenly reminded of the stories he heard as a child of wild wizards, like Sherlock, who swallowed hearts whole. 'Doctors are quite the fashion in Kingsbury, I'm sure,' he laughed, 'but here the magic is too strong for someone with such mediocre skills.' He cocked his head, birdlike in the intensity of his stare. 'How many patients do you lose? How many die at your table, burning with witchfire? You should just give up. Th old ways are the only ways.'  
John, who had listened to the entire tirade quietly, finally snapped. He walked past the gentleman, nose burning at the smell fo musky perfume and the metallic twang of magic, and opened the clinic door. 'Please leave,' he advised fimly. 'We have no business with witches or wizards.'  
The stranger laughed in a burst of painfully sharp howls. He raised his hand and shaped it so that his forefinger and middle inger formed tha barrel of a mock gun, aimed directly at John's forehead. Electricity danced in the air. This was not the eloquent magic that John had witmessed earlier. This was angry, vicious, unpredictable. Like the Waste.  
'Brave, brave doctor,' the gentleman chanted in a sing-song voice, 'to challenge the Witch of the Waste.'  
John's gut sank to the soles of his feet. 'No,' he mouthed, but it was too late.  
The witch snapped his wrist back - the recoil of a gun. White-hot pain bloomed through John's shoulder. He fell to the ground, clutching at it with a strangled cry. Angry magic roared its way through his veins, burning in his marrow. He pressed his face against the cool floor. If only it would stop, if only he would wake up and this would all be nothing more than a terrible dream.  
The witch pressed the heel of his shoe against the back of John's neck. 'The best part about that curse is that you can't tell anybody about it,' he laughed. He dug his heel in, choking John. 'Give my regards to Sherlock.' He lifted his foot off, laughed again, and was gone.


	2. 2: The Castle in the Waste

To the nature of a doctor with long clinic hours, John would rise with the sun. The dream had a soft hold on him, and would release him gently, leaving behind the smell of flowers in its wake.  
But he could not wake. He was trapped, amidst the roar of gunfire, the stench of burning flesh, and the whistle of bombs falling. He heard men screaming for their mothers. Soldiers with their blue uniforms covered in mud and soot and blood. And the pain of an enemy wizard's witchfire blazing through his shoulder, the agony of dying whilst living, of the years fading away as death beckoned. He dreamed of begging and sobbing for death, but it did not come.  
It couldn't come. There was something in his blood, something that drowned the witchfire. Something that yanked him out of the nightmare and into wakefulness.  
The sun was high in the sky, and a sweet breeze crept in through the open window. John sat with the covers bunched around his legs, sweat sticking his shirt onto his back. A dull throb resonated through his shoulder. John unbuttoned the top of his shirt and pulled his collar down. His breath hissed through his teeth as he inhaled sharply.  
White and silver mottled flesh burst out from beneath his right collarbone, dancing outwards in jagged patterns towards his arm. As he rolled his shoulder, a sharp crack of pain whipped through his flesh. The scar danced with vicious light. A witch's anger is demonstrated clearly through their witchfire, and the Witch of the Waste held nothing but hatred for John. He could read it in the malicious way his ribs twinged and the way he would not be able to perform surgery on any of his patients, ever again. Every motion he made was at the mercy of the Witch's rage, and whatever else the curse did, he feared to find out. He swallowed, throat suddenly dry. If he was not a doctor, then what could he be? He closed his eyes and breathed slowly.  
There was more damage to see. Now was not the time to panic.  
He stood. His knee creaked dangerously, a sharp flash of pain shooting right through to the centre of his joint. Wincing, he hobbled his way to his bedside mirror. His room itself was spartan at best, containing nothing more than a bed, desk, a chest of drawers and a single mirror where he shaved himself every morning. Standing before the mirror, he saw the true effects of witchfire. It was not only the pain in his veins. It was the grey beginning to appear at his temples, the lines drawn taught on his face, the weariness in his posture. He looked ten, no, twelve years older. _Tired._ Worn out. He closed his eyes and thought of his nightmare, and the flashes of a war he had never seen.  
John sighed, straightened his shoulders - ignoring the twinge he received as reward - and nodded stiffly at his forlorn reflection. 'Now you've gotten what you've always wanted,' he told himself firmly. 'You're a soldier.' He patted his leg once, lifted his chin, and went about shaving.  
He cut himself twice due to the trembling in his hand. Too many times he had to pause, inhale, steel himself, and continue. After a long hour that seemed to last an eternity, he finally shaved away his stubble, and stood staring at the reflection of a weary man. He clenched his fist once, twice, three times. There was only one thing to be done about this all.  
He took the back door, taking only a few supplies with him, and left. No one passing on the street recognised him.  
It was strange and sad that when he finally stepped into the Waste, where the grass was wildly greener and tough against his trousers and coat, his shoulder stopped aching so much, and his knee moved fluidly as before. As he walked, he remembered the dream he had before, the dream that lingered in his blood since he was a boy, of the sweet smell of flowers and the murmuring voice in his ear. He wondered if there was a form of twisted destiny in getting all that he dreamed of, but at a heavy cost.

John's first night in the Waste was plagued by a howling wind, dragging icy fingers through the grass and the sparse shrubbery lining the hills. He found a boulder to shield most of the wind and huddled into his coat, drawing the collar up against his freezing ears. He was oddly more resilient to the punishing elements than he remembered. When he finally fell asleep, he was tortured by dreams of gunfire, smoke, and the screams of dying youth. He woke to find that he had ripped his bag in two, and his bread had rolled into a puddle.  
The second night was worse. He saw faces, faces that were youthful and handsome, that belonged to families, that had names. He watched them each die, hands bloody with his futile attempts to heal them. A young, dark-haired soldier with tears streaking down his face grabbed John's hand as he bled out into the ravaged earth. 'You do not save lives,' he howled. 'You take lives.' This time, John woke to find a large ring of singed grass around his body.  
As he walked, John began to lose memories. Not in the sense that they were forgotten, no, but rather in the sense that they were no longer real to him. They had become fragments of a would-have-been, an alternate life that he had never lived. His reality was the curse, and the stench of death rooted deep in his heart. It was the emptiness that grew in his gut, drawing his thoughts towards bitter ends. He was no longer afraid of life, and yet that fear had been accompanied by something akin to childlike wonder. This was gone, now, and there was nothing left of the world that he wanted to see but the next dull boulder, or the next dry bush.  
The doctor died and the soldier marched on.  
The third night, John did not sleep at all, but sat cross-legged on a stump, taking apart a ghost rifle and cleaning it meticulously. Never once did his hand tremble. And the yearning in his heart that had lived for decades, torturing him with a slow fire, was muted. And yet he saw ghosts in the thick fog, men running into the fray with rifles pointed at the invisible enemy, eyes hollow and full of terrible secrets.  
.

The hills grew steep and dangerous. John decided it was best he find a walking stick of sorts, lest his leg start giving him trouble and give way. After two hours of pointless searching amongst harmless little bushes, he came across a rather dismal-looking branch sticking out of a large group of bushes. After checking there were no hidden nettles or thorns of any kind, he braced his bad shoulder and heaved at the branch. It refused to budge. John swore at it for a good five minutes - with language he had never used before - before kicking the branch savagely, at which point it pivoted with a creak. It was never a branch at all, for up from the bushes rose a disgruntled scarecrow. Some hideous form of humour had inspired the creator of this thing to gift it with a turnip for a head, complete with a scratched-out grin and two button eyes. It wore a badge of sorts on its front pocket, but the metal was too dirty to see the writing. Worst of all, John could smell the magic leaking from the thing, so thick and pungent he almost choked. He pursed his lips, breathing in deeply through his nose so that the cold air might numb his lungs and his throat, chasing down the bile. Whatever sensitivity he had to magic before was heightened now - whether it was due to the witchfire scar, or the exposure to the Waste, he couldn't say.  
John stared up at it for a while, eyebrows drawn together. 'Sod this,' he growled. He turned away and made his way up the steep incline as best he could, feet finding the most horizontal hold they could. Here and there the boulders were uneasy, threatening to dislodge and tumble downhill at any moment. His body moved amongst these dangers as though it had known a secret path for centuries before.  
Half an hour later, the stench of magic was still strong. John turned around in irritation to find the creature happily hopping up the hill with no effort whatsoever. 'Stop following me!' he shouted above the wind. 'I don't want anything more to do with magic and sodding witches, so you can fuck right off, thank you.'  
The scarecrow kept hopping towards him.  
John grunted angrily. 'Go away,' he grumbled. 'Go find me some shelter or something.'  
The scarecrow froze, tilted its head - which was incredibly disturbing - and creaked to the side. John kept us eye on it, ready to run up the hill if the thing charged at him. Instead, it leapt into the air, twirled around, and hopped towards the setting sun.

John blinked in momentary confusion, then let out a sharp bark of laughter. At least his grumblings had resulted in relief.

The incline ended, flattening into a long stretch where the lowest cloud banks brushed over the tips of each blade of grass. The golden glow of the dying sun danced off the mist, illuminating everything in dreamy light. Drops of dew deposited from the low cloud banks sparkled, tiny jewels clinging to every blade of grass. People spoke of the Waste as though it were a barren dessert, a cursed empty land. John saw such heartbreaking, lonely beauty.

The sun shimmered over the hills one last time before falling away, leaving behind streaks of colour rippling through the sky as its last mark for the day. The land fell into cold twilight. John continued to walk through the dark. There were no signs of visible shelter here, and he suspected it would rain in the night.

Suddenly, out of the gloom, the cursed scarecrow hopped cheerily back into view. John sighed, running his hand over his face. So much for getting rid of the thing. He then considered the vague possibility that it had indeed found some form of shelter, and decided to simply make the most of the situation.

The scarecrow swayed on its pole for a while expectantly until John was close enough, then spun around with an elaborate twirl, and began to hop into the distance. They moved away from the plateau, away from where the sun had set, further into the wilderness that was the Waste. John dared a glance behind. From here, even the lights of the town were out of sight. The wind dragged invisible fingers through the tall grass, howling mournfully. John turned the collar of his coat up against the cold and marched on. The wind's cries grew so deafening that he completely missed the low, anguished creak of rusted metal, and the bellow of steam erupting into the night air: a creature moving in the night, all gears and joints and armored plates. Rain began to fall, lightly at first, but then suddenly as an unforgivable downpour. John lifted his arm, trying to shield his eyes from the heavy droplets. The scarecrow bounced along, oblivious to the hideous weather. John considered the vague upside to being cursed so strongly, in that any sensory factors previously present in the human body would be completely negated.

A light shone waveringly in the distance. John picked up his pace, relief shooting through his body. The light was no closer than it had been. John squinted, catching sight of a door illuminated by a single lamp. The scarecrow moved faster and faster along, until John had to run to keep up with it. The door grew closer, but only just. It was then that the warm glow of the lamp glinted on metal, and John saw a giant mechanical leg shift forwards into the darkness. He looked up to find a massive expanse of curved metal, stretching outwards like the great belly of a beast, broken only by a great pair of bellows heaving and creaking. Whatever this monstrosity was, it was ancient and reeked of beautiful, powerful magic that tasted like rust and coal.

_A monster made from metal, that is where the wizard lives._

'You stupid turnip-head!' he roared above the elements, chasing the damned scarecrow and its impassive, stitched-on grin. 'I told you to find me shelter. Shelter! Not Sherlock's sodding castle! I don't want wizards, I don't want magic, I just want peace!'

The scarecrow reached the door, which John could now see was in fact an extension of the castle-beast's belly, and proceeded to hop backwards expectantly.

John growled in frustration, thought about the miserable cold, and made his decision. He shot forwards in a miraculous burst of energy and leapt onto the doorstep. He clung onto the railing, trying to adjust to the rise and fall of the beast's motion. The scarecrow seemed to smile proudly at him.

'Fine,' he huffed, leaning against the railing. 'You got me a place to hide from the rain.' He looked out into the wilderness, at the grass flattened and beaten by the wind. 'Thank you,' he said quietly.

For a moment, he imagined he saw not the blank, button eyes, but a flash of dark brown, lined with deep wrinkles. John started in shock, but the scarecrow had stopped hopping and finally stood still, and John was swept away too soon to see the face he thought he had glimpsed: kind, sad, and weathered.

A strange chill still lingering in the base of his spine, John turned uneasily on the heaving platform that was the doorstop, and, trying to suppress the entire surrealistic nature of it all, opened the door and stepped inside. Once the door had closed firmly behind him, he found that the elements were abandoned, and suddenly he was standing not inside the whirring, metallic prison he had imagined the castle to be. Instead, he stood at the foot of a flight of stairs lit by a single hanging lamp. To his right was a closed door, upon which hung a beautifully embroidered handkerchief. He tried the doorknob, but it was locked tight. At the top of the stairs was another door, which John decided was worth a try. Whatever the Waste had done for his knee was now gone. By the time John reached the top, his knee was burning with agony. He took a moment to lean against the wall to clear his mind of the pain.

This time, the door opened easily. John found himself in a vast room, lit only by a crackling fire burning merrily away in an open hearth. The entire floor was covered in mismatching carpets and rugs, and over this there existed a disarray of discarded paper and strangely-shaped bowls. A table stood at the other edge of the room, upon which an obscene amount of books were piled in no particular order. A tiny area had been cleared through the careless method of pushing at the pile, and a few books had fallen to the floor on the other side of the poor table. A single dish sat in this clear space, remnants of food beginning to dry on the rim.

John wrinkled his nose in disgust. Whatever sort of wizard Sherlock was, he was horrendous at personal hygiene. There were two armchairs by the fire, one of which looked far more cushioned than the other.

If John was to be brutally massacred by a wizard, he might as well enjoy the fire while he waited for his inevitable doom. He sat down in the more comfortable seat. It had been one day too many since he had been warm. John sighed contentedly and began to drift off into a comfortable drowsiness.

'Now, you can't sleep here!' exclaimed a voice, startling John out of his light sleep.

His first instinct was too look behind him, but the room remained empty but for the happy flickering of the hearth. He expected the owner of that voice to appear at any moment, a rather annoyed-looking housekeeper about to toss him out into the cold.

'Round here, dear,' the voice sighed. John turned, confused, back to the hearth, only to almost jump out of his skin.

The fire had risen a good foot above the logs, and had somehow developed eyes and a mouth, as well as a pair of arms to cross over its fire-bosom. John blinked. The fire was moving, talking, hell, it was staring at him in faint displeasure - but there was no magical residue rising from it whatsoever. There was no heavy stench of dark magic and the sort of spell that accompanied it. All that John could smell was the homely smell of burnt firewood and ash. It could only mean that this enchanted fire was something with a degree of power that someone with John's sensitivity could not quite sense, or rather, he had grown up with the smell of it sunk into his bones. Their own house had housed one of these creatures, very very long ago, and had lived under his mother's bed, sucking up her nightmares and transforming those horrible dreams into little blue fireflies that danced in the darkest corners of the house. Theirs was a quiet magic, one which merely transitioned one matter into another.

Those that feared demons would have been better off fearing the wizards or witches the true darkness originated from.

'You're a demon,' John said quietly.

The fire smiled at him, flickering yellow, red, and joyous gold. 'Ooh, that's right,' she nodded approvingly. 'Why, you're a Sensitive, aren't you?' Her paws spread out into thin white flames as she reached for another log.

John frowned. 'Sorry?'

She nibbled daintily on the corner of the log before pulling a face. 'It would explain why that nasty spell's taken such a strong hold to you,' she continued, ignoring John's confusion entirely. 'Oh no, don't worry, you don't have to explain it to me, dear. I know you can't.' She shoved the log to the side and the flames settled lower, squashing her features. She shifted into warmer colours, deep red, orange, and that last flicker of gold at the edge of a sunset. 'I'm afraid I haven't been very polite, have I? I'm Mrs Hudson, fire demon.'

John smiled in return and bobbed his head respectfully. 'John, ma'am,' he returned. 'John Watson.'

'Sensitive,' the demon nodded firmly.

That term again. He grew faintly irritated. 'I'm sorry, but what do you mean by that?' John demanded.

The demon smiled secretively. 'Oh, dear, no one told you,' she sighed. 'Your kind just aren't common anymore, are they? People just lock them up and call them mad. No, no, Sensitives know the world. They can smell magic, just like wizards do, but they'll never be affected by it. Never corrupted.'

John closed his eyes. He was too tired, and whatever he was, he was now twisted and changed by the Witch of the Waste and his witchfire. He was a freak. An outcast. He speculated upon the possibility that this was always his underlying destiny, and whether this explained his irrational desire to run out into the wilderness with every last fibre of his body. Well, John Watson got his wish. He was now living in the Waste, playing stowaway to a deadly wizard's metal castle.

The fire crackled noisily, stirring him from his thoughts and his imminent drowsiness. John blinked blearily at Mrs Hudson.

'That curse on you,' she said airily, waving a flame-formed hand in his general direction, 'I'll break it for you.'

Whatever was dulled or soft in John's mind sharpened itself instantly. His spine straightened. 'You'll what?' he demanded.

The demon smiled, patting down on the log in front of it. 'I'll break your curse,' she repeated, 'but only if you break mine. I have to run this entire house, run the baths, keep the beds warm, keep the doors open. I'm not a housekeeper, you know! I'm a very powerful fire demon. And my spark just isn't what it used to be.' She huffed in irritation, spewing forth bright blue sparks that ran along the cool stone rimming the hearth for a while, wild little children expiring all too soon. 'Do we have a deal?' she pressed.

John considered all the horrible tales he had been fed as a child on the sin of making a deal with a demon, and brushed them tiredly to the side. He nodded in confirmation.

There was no talk after that. The demon seemed content, and John's weariness finally overtook him. For the first time in days, he settled back into the chair and fell into a gentle, dreamless sleep.


End file.
